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Exchange Pieces like a Pro

Exchange pieces is one of the most important strategic topics in chess. Beginners usually believe that exchange mean to...

...swap off the pieces of the board.

More advanced players can understand that behind any exchange there are other statistical factors which one should take into account.

For example two bishops are equally valued; however, one of them may control more squares or participate in the attack. For that reason, we should not exchange these even if their mathematical value is equal.

Of course, you have to keep the material balance in mind, but it is also crucial to learn and apply in practice the strategically rules behind the exchanges and how the exchanges will affect the position after it.

Exchange or Trade

In chess, the exchange or trade of the chess pieces is a series of closely related moves. Yes, we can exchange pieces independently, but sometimes, it happens that we exchange a lot of pieces simultaneously.

Similarly, you should remember that any type of piece can be exchanged, except the kings. However, the king is not shy; he can capture the opponent pieces at the first opportunity!

Either player, White or Black, may make the first capture. This is not making him the winner because the other player can, and he should (!), recapture a piece. After this exchange, the pieces on the board will be equal.

The Value of our Army

Did you ever wonder how much your army is valued? We have 1 queen (9), two rooks (10), 2 (6), 2 knights (6) and 8 pawns, so the total value of our army is 39 points. Unfortunately, we cannot give a value to the king because, if we lose the king, then we automatically lose the game.

A Fantastic Practical Tip

Siegbert Tarrasch was German, one of the strongest chess players and most influential chess teachers of the late 19th and early 20th century. He used to say:

Don’t look the pieces outside of the chess board but what is inside!

Usually, and more specifically, the amateur players, use to calculate the pieces outside the board. I used to make this until I read this fantastic quote. After that, I started counting the pieces on the board. By developing this habit, you will calculate better the variations and evaluate them at the end of the forcing line.

The Exchange

The exchange of a rook for a bishop or a knight is called the Exchange. The rook is a more valuable piece, compared to the bishop or the knight; for that reason, this is called the Exchange. You can see some examples of it on the lesson 6th of the course called “Exchange Material for Precious Stones”. There you can understand the reasons why we give up the rook for one minor piece.

Similarly, there is another term on exchanges called “a minor exchange”. Robert Fischer used this term when he exchanged the bishop for the knight. He believed, correctly, that the bishop is a little more valuable piece compared to the knight. You can understand why, by watching the video lessons “Hierarchy of Chess Pieces” and “How to Choose Your Other Half?”

Unbalanced Positions Could be Dangerous

Please pay extra attention to the minor pieces remaining on the board. Even if there are still several other pieces on the board, you should be careful and anticipate possible ending transpositions.

Yes, these two minor pieces are “simply equal”; but this scenario is very tricky because the bishops and the knights have different potentials as pieces.

Keeping the bishop against the knight is an unbalanced position; and, for that reason, you should asses if this scenario is beneficial for you or not.

Very often, the bishop does not have any visible targets to attack; probably the opponent pawns and pieces are in the other color of the board, which makes the bishop blind!

Vice versa, the knight cannot fight well against the passed pawns or it cannot "control" both sides of the board simultaneously, am I right?

The Art of Exchanging

The art of exchanging over the chess board is one of aspects that you should learn in order to reach a higher level.

Knowing which piece, of your opponent or yours, you need to trade is already an improvement for your position. Yes, sometimes you need to get rid of your bad pieces.

The next step is to know what the right moment to execute the trade is.

Is it good for you?

You should ask yourself if after trading the position is beneficial for you or not. By asking this question you'll make profitable or even equal value exchanges and you'll continue having a good position.

Vice versa, if you are not careful you'll going to lose some of the good strategically points and slowly but surely you'll lose the game afterward. For that reason, you should ask yourself if after trading the position is beneficial for you or not.

Why Did We Create the Course?

For the above mentioned reasons, you can understand how important is the strategic topic on how to exchange pieces.

This course will explain to you how to exchange pieces, what you should take into account when training pieces, what to aiming for and what exchanges you should avoid.

This is why we decided to create this course called Exchange Pieces like a Pro. Now you can see the main content of the course:

Video Lessons

The course contains the following video lessons

Intro 40

Hierarchy of the Chess Pieces 7.24

How to choose your Other Half? 22.45

Evaluate the Chess Pieces like a Pro 15

The 5 Most Important Rules on Trades 12.28

Exchange Material for Precious Stones17

Isolating a Bad Piece 16

Defensive Exchanges 19.15

Good Endgame 16.18

Eliminating Defenders40

Create Weaknesses 19.29

Decision Making- Exchange or Not 14.05

Material Advantage 15.25

Space Disadvantage 19.41

The video duration is more than 200 minutes.

eBook

The Remote Chess Academy courses contain the eBook in order to help you understand the theoretical lessons and not miss any single word. The eBook contains all theoretical lessons and instructions for the practical part in order to maximize your chess training. The eBook is 128 pages long in PDF format.

The PGN files

After the game, you can see the games from the video lessons on PGN format. Similarly, the games on the practical part are on PGN files. In the light of that, you’ll have enough material to train yourself or your students on this important chess topic on how to exchange pieces.

Practical Part

The best way to decide which move to play is to write down your answer. The Remote Chess Academy has the practical part of every single course. Thus, you can test your theoretical knowledge with practice.

Of course, you may like to see this course, the video lessons and try to solve the puzzles sitting on your coach; however, I’m not suggesting you to do that.

In order to get the maximum of the training, you need to take real decisions! When you play chess, you are making real decisions, am I right? You have to do the same in the practical part. Take a piece of paper; see the puzzle position from the video and write down your move. Then open the PGN file with the answers and compare it with your notes.

The practical part contains the following topics:

Bad vs good piece = 5

Space disadvantage = 6

Exchange queens = 6

Exchange attacking pieces = 5

Create weaknesses = 5

Attack-eliminating defenders = 6

Exchange or not = 5

Material advantage = 7

Pawn ending = 5

Total = 50

Is this Course Good for Me?

This is a comprehensive course which can help you improve your chess understanding significantly and help you take a step forward to the next chess level.

The course is aiming both to beginners and intermediate players. The first lessons will help you understand very clearly the true value of the pieces. After that, you’re going to learn how to use the chess couples. For example, the rook and bishop against the rook and knight. You’ll find plenty of piece combinations.

In the following lessons, you’re going to learn other strategic aspects like how to isolate the enemy pieces, what to do with a space disadvantage, how to create weaknesses, when to go into the endgame etc.

Last but not least, you can train all of these techniques on the practical part in order to be ready to use the theoretical knowledge in your games. This is a guaranteed way to improve your play and, of course, your chess results.

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I cannot hide my enormous love for chess; this wonderful game. I play, study, teach and of course I have fun every single day. I hope that with this website (www.rules-chess-strategies.com) I will help you do the same!

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